Prana – one of the most misconstrued and misunderstood word in spirituality. A simple google search on prana comes back with its meaning as “breath, considered as a life-giving force”. Breath is only one aspect of prana and it makes sense for beings which breath. How about inanimate objects which dont breath? Do they have prana? Yogis have proved that one can stop breathing for long periods of time and yet continue to live.

Prana is much more than breath. It is the that universal energy or force present behind any thing. The blink of our eye, splitting of the atoms or splitting of meteors. Thousands of years ago the rishis fathomed the inherent quality of creation in this existence and they called it prana. Even a stone has a subtle level of prana in it for it to exist. Every object is floating in this vast sea of prana and receiving everything from it. (It is very easy to correlate prana to the higgs boson but I am not sure if they are the same. Maybe yes.) The yogis have been working with prana in their body to attain higher level consciousness. Everyone is born with a certain quantum of prana, but the quantity and quality change continuously, as one goes through life. There are 49 types of prana in the human body out of which 10 are considered important. Out of the 10, 5 of them are more important and more pervasive than all(more on them later). Positive thoughts, higher feelings and yogic practices generate higher levels of prana. The quantum of prana is influenced by the quality of the elements to which one is exposed and which one ingests in the course of life. Food and state of mind are two most important factors that affect the prana levels.

Food determines the quality of prana in a big way. The Bhagavad Gita refers to the quality of prana in different foods by categorizing them as sattwic, rajasic and tamasic. What type of food one eats determines his state of mind for the next few days. There was a very interesting experiment that was conducted by André Simonéton in France for establishing the pranic value of food. He used a simple pendulum on a piece of string, similar to that used by water diviners for dowsing, for this purpose. The subtle radiations emitted by organic matter affect the motion of a pendulum, causing it to swing and spin. By measuring the distance of a pendulum’s arc, and the speed of its spin, Simoneton was able to measure specific wavelengths, which indicate the intrinsic vitality and relative freshness of different foods. He published his research in Radiation des Ailments, Ondes Humaines, et Santé.

On the basis of his findings, Simonéton divided food into four general classes. On a scale of zero to 10,000 angstroms, he found the basic human wavelength to be about 6.5 thousand. Foods that have wavelengths between this and 10,000 angstroms, he regarded as those of the highest quality.

In this first class are fruits, fresh vegetables, whole grains, olive oil, ocean fish and shellfish. He found that food with a vital radiance of 8,000 to 10,000 angstroms caused the pendulum to rotate at the amazing speed of 4-500 revolutions per minute over a radius of 80 millimetres. Those between 6,000 and 8,000 angstroms spin at 3-400 revolutions per minute over a radius of 60 millimetre.

In the next class, with radiations 6.5 thousand to 3,000 angstroms are eggs, peanut oil, wine, boiled vegetables, cane sugar and cooked fish.

The fourth category exhibits practically no life force and includes margarine, conserves, alcoholic spirits, refined white sugar and bleached flour. Meats, pasteurized milk and overcooked vegetables, which have a value of less than 2,000, are too low in energy to cause the pendulum to revolve at all.

We can see that meat and most of non veg food come under the fourth category where they had lesser than 2000 angstroms. That is why a vegetarian diet is considered to be better than a non-veg diet due to the amount of prana in them. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says

Your food is not just food: it is you. What you eat, you become.

There was this knowledge sheet on food by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar saying that the meat of the animal still carries the impressions and habits of the animal in it. When we eat it many of our attitudes are affected by it and if we are sensitive then we can notice the changes. Because of the heaviness of non-veg food, it take longer to digest it and introduces many toxins into our system by staying in the body for longer periods of time. It also becomes difficult to meditate since the food is heavier. Just eating right will have most of out ailments and diseases go away. Changing the way we eat will go a long way towards living right.

With Genetically Modified food coming out now, even the vegetarian food is becoming polluted. They are causing many serious situations and bad impact on the environment. It has caused many bad things from spoiling the soil of the lands to the suicide of so many farmers in India. So please avoid GM foods and share this message with your friends too.

Hope this post gave you information on prana and how eating the right food rises your prana levels. Maybe also gave you a reason to turn vegetarian :).

PS . Look out for my posts on more about prana and its differnet types and functions soon!

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Saha nav avatu, Saha nau bhunaktu, Saha viryam karavavahi: Tejasvi nav adhitam astu: ma vidvisavahai; Aum Santih, Santih, Santih - May He protect us both; may He be pleased with us both; may we work together with vigor; may our study make us illumined; may there be no dislike between us. Aum, peace, peace, peace.

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Aravind Venkatachalam

is a senior software engineer living in the Bay area. He is a devotee of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and volunteers for the Art of Living Foundation. He uses this blog to share his ideas on ancient wisdom from the Puranas and from Sri Sri along with many other stories and juicy stuff!!